April 2008

Board of Regents approves policies

At its meeting on March 25, the Board of Regents approved two new
policies - Controlled Goods and Supporting and Accommodating
Breastfeeding. Controlled Goods policy is effective April 1, 2008
while the Breastfeeding policy will come into effect on June 1. The
Breastfeeding policy is being lauded as the first pan-university
breastfeeding policy among Canadian universities.

As well, at its March meeting, the Board approved changes to
Regulation 1.3 Tuition and Related Fees for undergraduate students
and introduced a new regulation 1.8 Appeals of Fees and Charges
regulations, which allows for formal appeal for tuition refund by
students who experience circumstances beyond their control during
the semester and are required to withdraw from their course(s). A
Tuition Refund Appeals Committee will be established to hear
students appeals.

These are the first policies to have formally passed through the
University's new Policy Framework Process.

Policy Database project nearing completion

The policy database project team is busy putting the final touches
on the new system and began testing during the week of April 7.
Almost half of all policy documents have been converted to the new
standard format. The go-live date has been pushed out a little, as
valuable time was lost in the last weeks of March with late-Winter
/ early-Spring storms. A demonstration session open to the entire
University community will take place in late-April with
announcements to come.

Once the database goes live, units who have webpages that link to
the main policy and procedures page will need to update those
pages. An information session was held on March 26 to discuss ideas
for redesign of such webpages - incorporating both and
distinguishing between University policy and local (or
departmental) policy.